Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield believes that humans will live on the moon within thirty to forty years:
Commander Chris Hadfield, who captured the public’s imagination by tweeting thousands of pictures from space and recording David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ at zero gravity, has predicted that a lunar base will be fully functional within his lifetime.
And within the next 70 years, he believes we could establish a base on Mars.
Commander Hadfield, 54, believes both goals are the next logical steps in human exploration.
This might happen, but as things stand it probably won’t be Canadians—or Americans—doing it.
China is setting its sights on moon exploration and India on Mars, to which it has sent a probe (fourth country to do so, and first Asian one).
Canada mirrors the United States in this area. Once best recognized in space exploration for the Space Shuttle’s Canadarm, it now hosts the Perimeter Institute, a centre for speculation in cosmology—fun but not the same thing.
Why boldly go when you can boldly speculate? And so much of the speculation these days seems aimed at avoiding evidence like the Big Bang and fine tuning, in favour of multiverses and many worlds.
Maybe we can’t have both.